Roses Are Red
by Rachel2
Summary: The following year after Spike leaves, he returns on Valentine's Day, no less... Will Faye be happy to see him? Why is she acting so oddly?


**Roses Are Red**

**By Rachel***

**Rated: PG-13**

**Gender: Romance/Drama/Holiday**

**E-mail: PeachGirlKiley@aol.com**

**Web Address: www.Spike-Faye-Shrine.cjb.net**

**- A little late since fanfic.net was down, but here is my holiday fanfaic for you! -**

**+ I do not own Cowboy Bebop +**

**++++++++++++++**

            Faye lay on her bed tears lay drying on her eyes. Her vision was blurred however she could still make out the faint rust stains scattered throughout the room. Not very romantic for Valentine's Day, but it would have to do. "Spike…" Faye uttered holding her hand to touch an invisible image she would give anything to feel for only a second. She let her hand fall to her forehead and then to her hair that she let fall loosely by itself.

            His tanned face, dark, thick green lock of hair. And those eyes, oh those eyes would drive her wild. They would always have something different to say, whether it good or bad, she couldn't get tired of looking at them. Except for once, the day he left, the day he said goodbye to her. Left her alone, nothing to live for. Only the hope that one day he'd come back to her, say that he'd never leave her again, and hold her in his arms forever.

            It had been a year already. _'Why do I even keep up hope, all because Jet couldn't find…' She rolled onto her side. "Damn it." She hit her fist into a pillow next to her. Her body began to shake with tears. Memories raced through her mind, his last goodbyes, and his first words when they met. His reaction when she said she was sorry. "Just come back to me Spike…"_

            There was a knock on her door, she glanced over. "What do you want, Jet?" Faye sighed whipping her tears away. No reply. "Jet, what is it?" Faye growled frustrated that she had to get up. She pulled back the raged sheet on her bed and stood her beer feet numbing when they felt the cold metal floor she wore a white tank top with gray boxer shorts. Faye rubbed her arms trying to gather warmth. It was late, the numbers on her clock red thee in the morning. Cursing under her breath as she stubbed her toe she stumbled to the door. "This better be good other wise I'll—" Faye opened the door to find nothing. She looked down the hall. "Hello?" Silence, there was nothing, she looked down to find a single red rose petal. She stared at it in question. "What the hell?" She picked it up and looked a little further; there was another. "Jet, is this some kind of…" She trailed of. _'Oh dear God, does the man like me?! I'll just break it to him slow.' She sighed, she found it scary. If anything she found Jet to be a mentor, or the uncle type, more then… Someone she would be attracted to. She kept walking down the hall and around the corner until she found a piece of paper on the ground. She opened it and red it aloud. "Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet…" She trailed off her eyebrow arching to the last line. "…And so __am I?" She looked further down to find an arrow. "Look a… ahead?" She did as directed. Finding something she longed to see the second she let those first tears fall from her eyes. "Spike."_

            She blinked a few times. The note dropping from her finger tips and floating to the ground, her head fell slight to the left her hands going to her face tears filling her eyes. She knew what was happening…

Spike was standing against a wall holding a single red rose in his left hand, holding it down at his side. He wore his yellow shirt un-tucked, and unbuttoned, along with his navy pants. "Like it?" He looked at her with that coy grin that always had her shooting some smart comment at him just to keep herself from blushing.

            _'Like the poem, or how you're dressed?'_ She thought kicking herself for such a thought she knew it was happening again she couldn't take this much longer. Faye couldn't answer him, she just stared. "Stop it…" Tears still filling her eyes. "Stop it!" She screamed clutching her hair and falling to her knees. Rage, fear, and anguish were in her voice, her cries. Spike was taken aback. "Go away. I'll close my eyes, and you'll go away… One… Two…" She counted like she always did, once she got to ten he'd be gone, she knew he would be. "…Three… Four…"

            "Faye—"

            "_Five_! Six…" She was becoming frantic, she rocked back and forth, pivoting off of her feet. _'Go away, go away, go away!' She screamed in her mind. Why wasn't he?! His voice was always gone by the count of five. "Seven… Eight…"_

            Spike dropped the rose to the floor and stepped forward silently almost frightened by how she was acting. Guilt wavered over him. It had been a year. He had left her there, high a dry, waiting for a lost love to wash her away. A feeling of hope and wanting that now was more of a burden, and a cure to her then a blessing. "I'm sorry—"

            "Ni…Ni…" She stopped. She was no longer rocking. Her body had grown exhausted. "S…" She was still looking down, her body shook. _'Why won't it stop?'_

            He smirked. "You've got a cute butt." Faye stopped shivering and sat up suddenly her eyes tear ridden her head cocked to one side.

           "What?" She hissed. This had yet to happen in one of her… Vision fantasies… First she didn't mind them, but repeatedly… Day after day. The counting would always work, he would always go away, but why wasn't he?! Drugs, drinking, none of it got rid of them, the counting had been working the longest now.

            "Outside your window last afternoon. You seemed really pissed when you saw me. You're not… Dreaming Faye. I'm here." He bent down letting his hand touch her head.

            "No!" Faye cried backing into a corner pulling her knees to her chest. "Make it stop… Stop… I can't take it anymore… Oh God, make it stop!" She broke down again.  Spike stood up again his eyes wide in horror.

            She looked like a ghost, she was so pale, her eyes were lifeless and her skin was so pale looking. What happen to the girl with the violet hair, and vibrant green eyes? That audited he liked to annoy so much? What happened to Faye Valentine? Was it him that was causing her this pain? "Faye, you…" He stopped stepping towards her. 

            "It's okay, he'll be gone soon Faye…" She crinkled her nose slightly, it was stuffy from crying. She looked at the floor, her eyes fixed, staring at an imaginary version of herself, the self she used to know, the self she missed. _'What have you become Faye? What are you doing to yourself?'_

            "Damn it, snap out of it!" Spike grabbed her shacking her violently. "You're not dreaming, and I'm really here!" Spike growled letting her go and flopping down on the floor. "I've been watching you for about a week now."

            Faye didn't care if it was another one of her dream states; Spike was too real to not fall for it. "What was the whole butt thing about?"

            "Oh," He smirked with a slight chuckle. "you've got a cute butt…" He coughed uncomfortably.

            Faye's eyebrow arched again. She had him, for once in her life… In one of her dreams, she had him trapped in a corner with nothing to fight back with. "Explain."

            "Well, you had just gotten out of the shower and you were in your room tending to your hair, and apparently taking up the habit of sleeping pills…" Spike frowned looking at her briefly, and then looking away. It was his fault for what he had done to her. All he had to do was come back a few weeks later everything would have been fine. It would have gone back to normal. "You didn't notice you had left your blinds up and the window open. I was looking in on you at the time and… Well you were just getting dressed. That's when you noticed and saw that shadowed figure and started screaming a cursing and—"

            "That was you?" What was she doing now, making herself believe that that person was her. It was sad…

            "You called me an impudent little shit that should throw himself off the nearest building or cliff, which ever came first… I believe that's how it was…" Spike sighed staring at her. She smiled a little a blush forming on her cheeks, but he didn't notice.

            "Why Spike?" She looked at him. Why did she even bother any more. She could have ended it a long while back. Poison, drug over dose, a tall building… She couldn't stand this.

            "I said I wasn't going to die—"

            "You were going to find out if you were really alive… Yes you tell me that every night, now please… Just tell me something I haven't heard damn it…" Faye looked away. "Besides it's my last night alive, you might as well make it an enjoyable one."

            Spike was no longer just frightened by her, he was terrified. _'Every night? I just let her see me for the first time in a year, and this happens almost every night?!' He smiled, he knew what would get her. Out of this memory lock, this pain, nothing would make her think this was a dream. "Faye…" He shook his head._

            "Well, fine then don't… Do whatever you want, you do that anyway…" She sighed looking at the ground. Spike let his hand run through her hair.

            "Look at me." She did at his voice said wanting the pain to end. He knew what he couldn't have done, he couldn't have kissed her, out of all the things, she wouldn't be able to picture that. He let his thumb run over her cheeks drying her tears. "I'm real Faye. You're not dreaming, I'm sorry, I swear to God, I am… There's not excuse for me staying away this long." He pulled her closer and pressed his lips to hers no emotions other then the pleading wanting to help her going into the kiss. He wanted the Faye he knew back.

            Faye's eyes darted opened and she slapped him. "What the—" He sighed hugging her tightly his head pressed against her in a frantic hope of finding something once lost.

            "There you are… I've found you… That was you for a second there Faye. Don't go away again, stay. Hit me again if it helps. You're scaring me. It takes a lot to scare me, you know that. So damn it, snap out of it!" He pulled her away and looked at her away tears streaming down her face.

            "Spi… Spike, is that really you?" Faye's mouth trembled to the beat her heart was racing. This wasn't actually happening, was it?

            Relief washed over him and he held her again, rocking her from side to side. "I'm sorry… Oh God, I'm so sorry…" His heart wrenched as the words poured from his mouth like forbidden words that should never leave one's mouth. "It's me…" He nodded and kissed her again on the cheek. "Please, forgive me… I didn't know you'd—" She slapped him again. "Ah!" He hissed. She had whacked him harder that time.

            "No, you didn't know what I would go through…" She breathed unsteadily looking at him. Spike held her hand against his cheek. "The fact I'm still alive makes you the lucky one I guess."

            Spike still looked at her worriedly. How carefree she was about all this. "How can you talk like that?"

            "Every night Spike… You somehow come up to me, sometimes wrapping your arms around me, other times coming in with blood all over you but, all it really was, was a trail of blood from me with a new cut on my wrist that I was too frightened to slice the rest of the way." Spike's heart shattered and his arms left Faye's to fall limp at his side. "Jet would curse and yell, I'll I would make out was you need help… Maybe, who knows, but really all I needed was you. The only reason I didn't cut it deep enough was that hope in the back of my mind… The hope that you would be back some day."

            Spike's mouth moved like he wanted to say something but he didn't. _'What have I done?'_

            "I wanted you to just say that you've found out whether or not your alive, kiss me, tell me everything will be okay and let me live the life I don't have any longer. Then you left, just like that." He wasn't a dream, he was there. Her heart wrenched in happiness and in fear.

            She was eating him alive, yet he could deal with it, he had to, for her sake, and for his. "Faye…" She lounged at him wrapping her arms around his neck and not daring to let him go any time soon.

            "Don't go again, don't go… Don't go…" Her body was shaking again. Spike wrapped his arm around her in a desperate fight to make her stop, he was so scared and this point he thought he was going to cry next. "I love you to much, please Spike, don't leave me."

            His hold on her loosened and he pulled back to looked at her. "Faye, I—"

            "I love you." She sighed her wet tears gathering into his yellow shirt as she fell onto his shoulder again.

             Spike stood lifting Faye into his arms her legs locking around his waist, he held a strong grip on her as she continued to cry some more. "Don't leave me, and I won't leave you…" He whispered.

            "Deal." Faye uttered as he opened her door a hard kick of his foot, and closed it with the flick of his wrist after placing Faye on her bed. A small smile was hidden on her face, covered by the looming shadows of night. Spike grabbed a chair from the corner of her room and sat down by her head as she laid down on her side facing away from him so she could hide the blush on her cheeks. They were silent, no one spoke for the next five minutes. Spike dared to let his fingers run through her hair and she sighed finding comfort in his touch. "Spike?"

            "Hmm?" He mumbled his eyes growing weary, even though he still managed to let his hand run through her hair and finally rest on her right shoulder.

            "Are you really, real?" She sighed. "Or is this just another dream that I'm going to hate waking up from?" Her voice was scarce, she was falling asleep.

            "I'm real…" He sighed. Faye nodded content with that. 

            "Happy Valentine's Day… Spike…" Faye sighed  yawning one last time before letting sleep take over her.

            He smirked. She had no covers on her bed, well, except for a sheep, torn by her nails... He threw it to the ground and pulled off his shirt draping it over her, covering as much as he could. Standing silently, he pulled a few stray pieces of hair away from her face and kissed her cheek gingerly. It was the most caring gesture he had ever shown towards her. "Happy Valentine's Day…" He sighed looking around her room in silence before opening the door and stepping out to get her and himself a blanket._ 'I'll never leave you again, Faye.'_ He smirked and leaned against the wall. The box around his heart broke fixing any wounds once left. He nodded content with his thoughts. _'And, I love you.'_ He grabbed two blankets from the hall closet and walked back into the room closing the door behind. "I'll be here in the morning." He whispered.

_** **Happy Valentine's Day** **_


End file.
